A variety of electronics systems, such as telecommunication systems, commonly employ multi-conductor cables to provide electrical connections to system components, such as, but not limited, to circuit components mounted on printed circuit cards installed within respective card slots of an electronics equipment bay. As shown in the diagrammatic side view of FIG. 1, the respective conductors of such a multi-conductor cable 10 are customarily terminated at pins of a multi-pin connector, such as a ‘telco’-type multi-pin connector, shown generally at 20, and in detail in the respective front, side, front perspective and rear perspective views of FIGS. 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively. This type of multi-pin connector is configured to (mechanically and electrically) mate with an associated multi-socket receptacle 30, such as may be mounted adjacent to a rear edge 42 of a printed circuit card 40, installed in a respective equipment chassis card slot.
Stable mechanical support for the multi-pin connector 20 is typically provided by way of a rear panel 50, upper and lower portions of which are affixed to (generally horizontally extending) frame members 60 of the equipment rack proper. The rear panel 50 may have one or more connector-receiving apertures 51. Such an aperture is sized to allow passage therethrough of a distal end 21 of multi-pin connector 20, so that the connector's pins may engage corresponding sockets in the distal end 31 of multi-socket receptacle 30. Where the rear panel contains a plurality of multi-pin connector-receiving apertures, the apertures are normally positioned so as to be alignable with corresponding multi-socket receptacles supported on multiple printed circuit cards, such as a pair of printed circuit cards installed in adjacent card slots, or a motherboard and an adjacent daughterboard mounted thereon by way of associated stand-offs.
In order to enable the multi-pin connector 20 to be stably retained by the rear panel 50, the rear panel customarily includes a pair of bores 52 and 53 adjacent to opposite (e.g., upper and lower) edges of the connector-receiving aperture 51. These bores are sized to receive hardware fittings, e.g., screws, that pass through associated bores 22 and 23 in a flange portion 24 of the multi-pin connector 20 on either side of its distal end 21, and affix the connector 20 to the rear panel 50.
A shortcoming of this type of connector attachment architecture is the fact that the connector's cable attachment interface 25 that joins the cable 10 with the connector proper overlaps and projects beyond the (lower) connector bore 23. This is particularly problematic as cable and circuit densities have increased, making access to attachment fittings difficult and cumbersome. As a consequence, in order to attach a fitting to each of the connector bore 23 and its associated rear panel bore 53, it is often necessary to remove the rear panel from the equipment chassis, so that the fitting can be inserted from the interior or card side of the rear panel through the bore 53 and into the bore 23 of the connector 20. Then, once the connector 20 has been attached to the rear panel (by way of fittings through each bore pair), the rear panel itself is reaffixed to the equipment rack. Unfortunately, removing the rear panel in order to attach such a connector means that any other printed circuit card, to which another respective connector supported by that rear panel is connected, will necessarily be taken off-line, and thereby disrupt service to its associated telecommunication circuit.
Proposals to avoid removing the rear panel in order to provide attachment to the lower portion of the connector (where the bore 23 is located), have included the use of wire ties, lacing cords, loop-and-hook strap attachments, and the like. Drawbacks of these approaches include their inherent lack of structural rigidity, their inability to ensure blind alignment between the multi-pin connector and its associated multi-socket receptacle on the printed circuit card, and the fact that they are labor intensive, which increases the cost of manufacture.